Becoming Richard Pryor by Scott Saul

Author:Scott Saul [Saul, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-12-09T00:00:00+00:00

HAL [gently and matter-of-fact as ever]: Dave, don’t. I’m losing my mind, Dave.

Hi, my name is Hal 9000. I was embedded in 1992. My teacher taught me a song. Would you like to hear it?

One critic described Richard’s performance as “like a ballet, his hands floating slow motion out of control, his head jerking this way and that as if possessed.”

In the original version of “Acid,” Richard had inserted an extra existential twist to the tale. During his reckoning with the abyss, a powerful voice comes out of a howling wind and assails Richard, urging him to let go of his identity as a “nigger”:

VOICE FROM BEYOND [whispering furiously, with an accusatory tone]: I’ve been waiting for about 22 years to meet your ass. You’ve been bullshittin’ me, you know, with all that old jive nigger shit? You know, hidin’ behind them shields and shit? Instead of coming forward with all this energy?

You been layin’ back, posin’ an’ shit, bullshittin’, motherfucker, well you’re DEAD tonight. . . . I’m gonna free you, brother. I’m taking over where I rightfully belong; you givin’ up all that phony psychology you didn’t learn.

RICHARD [speaking as if trapped in a slow-motion film]: Wha-uh-tin-the-fu-kis-sap-ning-to-me-ee?

VOICE FROM BEYOND [calm now, comforting]: You becoming a man. You just born. But I’m afraid . . . you won’t be a nigger no more. But you won’t be ignorant, either. The truth . . . is everlasting.

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